So, I work and go to school at a university which has a pretty good reputation academically, and a phenomenal reputation for athletics ( Read more... )

So... what would you guys consider to be absolutely classics (or deserve-to-be-classics) of the young adult literature* genre?

*(I'm not going to get hardcore with the definitions, but generally speaking I think a young adult novel isn't just any book a young adult might happen to read, but has some content relating to young adulthood, however ( Read more... )

I'm working on my course plan for next semester's section of Freshman Composition, and it's evolving in strange ways. I could use some advice ( Read more... )

I've had it mentioned to me that I haven't been posting on here much at all, so I've decided to implement the rule I use for my handwritten journal: better to write about nothing than to write nothing! So here comes a bunch of random fluff ( Read more... )

Bother. I had been planning to use the same syllabus as I taught this fall in my spring section of Freshman English, same texts and all. And now, having looked at my roster and discovered my class is more than half boys, and almost all students in the sciences, I'm wondering if I'd be sadistic (or would it be masochistic?) to try and teach Pride ( Read more... )

From a student response paper: "Families today are much more complex then they were during Hamlets day ( Read more... )

Going to teach in 95-degree heat in a tiny room on the 4th floor of a non-air-conditioned building. Must select clothing which is as cool as possible, sweat-stain-resistant, and yet in no way indecent.

These are not the dilemmas you foresee when you decide to become a professor!

I'm trying to think of modernizations of classic works of literature along the lines of Bridget Jones, She's the Man, that kind of thing - other than Jane Austen or Shakespeare. Help? Can be a film, TV, a novel, whatever.

ETA: Including children's and YA retellings, btw.

The time has come for me to order books for my class next semester. I'm thinking I'll do the detective theme again; that plan has its disadvantages, but it sounds so much easier than a whole new prep ( Read more... )

I have to start a research unit with my students tomorrow. I've got no clue what I'm assigning. My mom suggested "energy issues" as a good overall topic because they could narrow it down so many ways (hybrid cars, off-shore drilling, home heating, oil pipelines...).

But I need to assign reading, and there's nothing in their book that relates. ( Read more... )